A few times each year, the decision-makers at Pinnacle Hospitality become taste-testers.

On this day, the menu at Tre Lounge is under the proverbial microscope. Chef Jon Greene has prepared four appetizers, six lunch entrees and a dozen dinner entrees as potential new items for the restaurant and lounge.

“I’m trying to get into some new ideas,” Greene said.

His options include several seafood dishes, a turkey burger and some Asian-influenced items.

Each will be evaluated for how it looks and will have about a forkful’s chance to sell its taste to a table of owners and guests of the group that also owns Callaway’s and Foleys Fish, Chop & Steak House and the new Elements on 8th.

“They have educated palates, and they know what they like, so my challenge is to try to get them to think outside the box,” Greene said.

Operating partner Randy Derheim first reaches for one of Greene’s appetizers, a Louisiana shrimp and grits dish with Andouille sausage.

Shortly after their tasting, the decision is made. Seven items will be added to Tre’s menu, starting in February. They include a crab cake appetizer, Mandarin turkey burger, Cajun bronzed mahi mahi sandwich, Black Angus Yankee pot roast and a Creole jambalaya.

It’s a similar process at each of the company’s properties. Low-selling items are rotated off the menu and replaced with new ones developed locally but often reflecting national trends.

“We’ll taste out (menu changes) and if we agree on how they present and the price structure, we’ll go on and approve them and go on to a menu reprint and introduce them into the market,” Derheim said.

In the past year, several local restaurant owners have offered new concepts. National chains also continue to come into the market. Diners have more choices, and restaurant operators have more competition, so testing, tweaking and recasting menus is commonplace.

For WR Hospitality, which owns Minervas, the Phillips Avenue Diner and several other concepts, the kitchen at Grille 26 often doubles as the test kitchen.

“We are a chef-driven business, and we get a lot of input from the chefs working in the restaurant on a daily basis,” she said. “We allow them to come up with their own (items), but we have to test new ingredients and things that aren’t necessarily in the area.”

Seasonal menus also offer a chance to try out dishes that sometimes end up on the main menu. The committee recently tested eight items for its Taste of New Orleans specials that start in February.

“It’s a collaborative effort,” corporate regional chef Chad Olsen said. “We give them (the chefs) a lot of leeway to come up with it. They’re the ones to work it every day and make it come to life.”

Creating a concept

When Taphouse 41 opened Jan. 23 at the Western Mall, it represented an idea nearly five years in the making.

Inspired by the national growth of “better burger” concepts such as Five Guys Burgers and Fries and Smashburger, the team at WR “wanted to take it up a notch,” Christen said.

They put the idea together but lacked a location until Champps closed last year. CEO Paul Van Bockern thought the burger concept might fit at 41st Street and Western Avenue.

The company further developed the idea to include small plate appetizers, dozens of beers on tap and bourbons.

“Bourbons and whiskeys are so hot we felt it was needed in our area,” Olsen said. “In our restaurants, people are asking more and more for a bourbon or whiskey list … so for us it was a natural evolution, seeing these bourbon bars popping up, that Sioux Falls can definitely warrant it.”

The space was big enough for two restaurants, leading the company to create the All Day Cafe & Good Night Bar, which opened late last year.

The restaurant is loosely modeled after other properties in Chicago and Denver, and the menu is a bit of a departure from what diners might expect.

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Brunch entrees are served all day, while southern influences permeate other dishes, including an oyster po-boy, Cajun meatloaf and a poached egg served with smoked pork.

“A lot of things on the menu people have substituted or put on the side,” Christen said. “What ends up happening is it completely changes the flavor of the dish and … there’s a reason all those ingredients are in there. Pretend you’re on vacation because you’re more apt to be adventurous.”

While that concept offers customers a chance to broaden their dining horizons, the latest offering from Pinnacle relies on tried-and-true favorites.

Elements on 8th, which opened last year at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, combines a lounge, restaurant and large patio with a menu that draws on bestsellers from Pinnacle’s other properties.

A few months into operation, changes already are in motion. Pinnacle executives recently tested a salad bar at lunch, and they’re working on new appetizers designed to be outdoor-friendly once patio season starts.

“There’s some benefit to having multiple businesses,” Derheim said. “You get leveraged buying power with vendors. We get to develop internal expertise we can share from store to store. Lessons learned, there’s benefit to that.”

It’s been a different sort of learning experience for the owners of The District, who opened their restaurant, lounge and events center in November on the campus of The Empire Mall.

“The whole concept is different,” co-owner Jered Johnson said. “We spent a lot of time researching what was already here, what we felt demand was and finding a way to put a different spin on it.”

The menu for Woodfire Grill was designed around the grill, which Johnson said allowed for flavors not found in the local market. But he added that the entrees couldn’t be too extreme.

“Especially with where we’re located, we get a lot of mall traffic, and those are typically rural residents,” he said. “It was the fine divide between being an upscale restaurant but still upscale casual where you could come in and get a burger.”

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The menu has been trimmed from its initial 90 items down to 63, and soon the restaurant will start reintroducing items from the original menu as weekly features.

“We let the customer do a lot of the testing,” Johnson said. “We encouraged a lot of feedback from them through … email, face-to-face interaction with management, and we try to encourage servers to ask how it was or if they have suggestions in the beginning rollout.”

Restaurant owners need to carefully survey a market before diving in, according to Joseph Szala, principal and creative director with the Atlanta-based restaurant marketing firm Vigor.

“The first thing, before even thinking about the brand, is to make sure the food is on point and is truly a unique offering,” he said. “Who else is doing this, and what makes mine better? And if you can’t answer that question, you really shouldn’t be opening a restaurant.”

The name also is critical, he said.

“When someone encounters it, can they easily pronounce it? Is it memorable or is it boring and trite?”

Logos also must be easily seen and remembered, and design of the space is increasingly important, Szala said.

“People are paying attention to the interior experience,” he said. “And it’s sparked by restaurants taking the forefront in media, television, and people are talking about presentations and flavor profiles. These are phrases consumers never used.”

Evolving palates

Now, everyone can be a food critic, Szala added. Comments and photos can be shared on numerous social media platforms.

When restaurants don’t measure up, it can lead to a digital disaster for owners as diners blast their experience. But all the sharing and increased attention on food also might have evolved people’s palates, including in the Sioux Falls market.

“There’s a lot more foodies in this town than people give us credit for,” said Justin Sperlach, a marketing assistant at WR Hospitality. “Grille 26 was something Sioux Falls had never seen before (when it opened in 2009), and I told me friends and family it was like a Twin Cities restaurant.”

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The company’s staff members often draw on restaurants in the Twin Cities or Omaha for ideas.

“The palate of the Sioux Falls consumer seems like it’s always growing,” Olsen said. “They’re traveling to those cities as well and seeing the things they do.”

Foley’s, which marks its 10-year anniversary this year, is an example of how the local dining scene has developed, Derheim said.

“There was only one establishment in the category at that time and that was Minervas, and the city was clearly in a huge growth spurt,” he said. “It really was going to fill that next leap in that category.”

The menu’s stability has helped Foley’s gain a following, Derheim said, but 10 years later “if you look at that footprint, that upscale steakhouse footprint, you can count on two or three fingers who’s in that (in the market.)”

“You’re looking at a $3 (million) to $3.5 million build-out, finishing touches, all the other things that go into putting that project together. That’s not a small deal,” he said. “And maybe people look at the success we’ve had and the legacy success of Minervas and think starting something on a smaller scale has less risk, and that’s fine, too.”